The flag is widespread, even on an official level, but bears no official legal standing as a symbol for the region.

The use of the Vergina Sun is widespread, though it bears no legal standing as an official emblem of the region. However, Greece has lodged a claim for trademark protection of it as an official state symbol under the World Intellectual Property Organization,[6]

Famous Macedonia is a military march of the Greek army, but is regarded as the regional anthem of Macedonia.

It incorporates most of the territories of ancient Macedon, a kingdom ruled by the Argeads whose most celebrated members were Alexander the Great and his father Philip II. The name Macedonia was later applied to identify various administrative areas in the Roman/Byzantine Empire with widely differing borders (see Macedonia (region) for details).

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Macedonia lies at the crossroads of human development between the Aegean and the Balkans. The earliest signs of human habitation date back to the palaeolithic period, notably with the Petralona cave in which was found the oldest European humanoid, Archanthropus europaeus petraloniensis. In the Late Neolithic period (c. 4500 to 3500 BC), trade took place with quite distant regions, indicating rapid socio-economic changes. One of the most important innovations was the start of copper working.

According to Herodotus, the history of Macedonia began with the Makednoi tribe, among the first to use the name, migrating to the region from Histiaeotis in the south. There they lived near Thracian tribes such as the Bryges who would later leave Macedonia for Asia Minor and become known as Phrygians. Macedonia was named after the Makednoi. Accounts of other toponyms such as Emathia are attested to have been in use before that. Herodotus claims that a branch of the Macedonians invaded Southern Greece towards the end of the second millennium B.C. Upon reaching the Peloponnese the invaders were renamed Dorians, triggering the accounts of the Dorian invasion. For centuries the Macedonian tribes were organized in independent kingdoms, in what is now Central Macedonia, and their role in internal Hellenic politics was minimal, even before the rise of Athens. The Macedonians claimed to be Dorian Greeks (Argive Greeks) and there were many Ionians in the coastal regions. The rest of the region was inhabited by various Thracian and Illyrian tribes as well as mostly coastal colonies of other Greek states such as Amphipolis, Olynthos, Potidea, Stageira and many others, and to the north another tribe dwelt, called the Paeonians. During the late 6th and early 5th century BC, the region came under Persian rule until the destruction of Xerxes at Plataea. During the Peloponnesian War, Macedonia became the theatre of many military actions by the Peloponnesian League and the Athenians, and saw incursions of Thracians and Illyrians, as attested by Thucidydes. Many Macedonian cities were allied to the Spartans (both the Spartans and the Macedonians were Dorian, while the Athenians were Ionian), but Athens maintained the colony of Amphipolis under her control for many years. The kingdom of Macedon, was reorganised by Philip II and achieved the union of Greek states by forming the League of Corinth. After his assassination, his son Alexander succeeded to the throne of Macedon and carrying the title of Hegemon of League of Corinth started his long campaign towards the east.

Macedonia remained an important and powerful kingdom until the Battle of Pydna (June 22, 168 BC), in which the Roman general Aemilius Paulus defeated King Perseus of Macedon, ending the reign of the Antigonid dynasty over Macedonia. For a brief period a Macedonian republic called the "Koinon of the Macedonians" was established. It was divided into four administrative districts. That period ended in 148 BC, when Macedonia was fully annexed by the Romans.[13] The northern boundary at that time ended at Lake Ohrid and Bylazora, a Paeonian city near the modern city of Veles. Strabo, writing in the first century AD places the border of Macedonia on that part at Lychnidos,[14] Byzantine Achris and presently Ochrid. Therefore ancient Macedonia did not significantly extend beyond its current borders (in Greece). To the east, Macedonia ended according to Strabo at the river Strymon, although he mentions that other writers placed Macedonia's border with Thrace at the river Nestos,[15] which is also the present geographical boundary between the two administrative districts of Greece.

Subsequently the provinces of Epirus and Thessaly as well as other regions to the north were incorporated into a new Provincia Macedonia, but in 297 AD under a Diocletian reform many of these regions were removed and two new provinces were created: Macedonia Prima and Macedonia Salutaris (from 479 to 482 AD Macedonia Secunda). Macedonia Prima coincided approximately with Strabo's definition of Macedonia and with the modern administrative district of Greece[13] and had Thessalonica as its capital, while Macedonia Salutaris had the Paeonian city of Stobi (near Gradsko) as its capital. This subdivision is mentioned in Hierocles' Synecdemon (527–528) and remained through the reign of emperor Justinian.

The Slavic, Avar, Bulgarian and Magyar invasions in the 6–7th centuries devastated both provinces[16] with only parts of Macedonia Prima in the coastal areas and nearer Thrace remaining in Byzantine hands, while most of the hinterland was disputed between the Byzantium and Bulgaria. The Macedonian regions under Byzantine control passed under the tourma of Macedonia to the province of Thrace.

View of the interior of the Roman-era Rotunda in Thessaloniki with remnants of the mosaics

A new system of administration came into place in 789–802 AD, following the Byzantine empire's recovery from these invasions. The new system was based on administrative divisions called Themata. The region of Macedonia Prima (the territory of modern Greek administrative district of Macedonia) was divided between the Thema of Thessalonica and the Thema of Strymon, so that only the region of the area from Nestos eastwards continued to carry the name Macedonia, referred to as the Thema of Macedonia or the Thema of "Macedonia in Thrace". The Thema of Macedonia in Thrace had its capital in Adrianople.[17][18][19]

Familiarity with the Slavic element in the area led two brothers from Thessaloniki, Saints Cyril and Methodius, to be chosen to convert the Slavs to Christianity. Following the campaigns of Basil II, all of Macedonia returned to the Byzantine state. Following the Fourth Crusade 1203–1204, a short-lived Crusader realm, the Kingdom of Thessalonica, was established in the region. It was subdued by the co-founder of the Greek Despotate of Epirus, Theodore Komnenos Doukas in 1224, when Greek Macedonia and the city of Thessalonica were at the heart of the short-lived Empire of Thessalonica. Returning to the restored Byzantine Empire shortly thereafter, Greek Macedonia remained in Byzantine hands until the 1340s, when all of Macedonia (except Thessaloniki, and possibly Veria) was conquered by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan.[20] Divided between Serbia and Bulgaria after Dušan's death, the region fell quickly to the advancing Ottomans, with Thessaloniki alone holding out until 1387. After a brief Byzantine interval in 1403–1430 (during the last seven years of which the city was handed over to the Venetians), Thessalonica and its immediate surrounding area returned to the Ottomans.[21]

The capture of Thessalonica threw the Greek world into consternation, being regarded as the prelude to the fall of Constantinople itself. The memory of the event has survived through folk traditions containing fact and myths. Apostolos Vacalopoulos records the following Turkish tradition connected with the capture of Thessalonica:[22]

"While Murad was asleep in his palace at Yenitsa, the story has it that, God appeared to him in a dream and gave him a lovely rose to smell, full of perfume. The sultan was so amazed by its beauty that he begged God to give it to him. God replied, "This rose, Murad, is Thessalonica. Know that it is to you granted by heaven to enjoy it. Do not waste time; go and take it". Complying with this exhortation from, Murad marched against Thessalonica and, as it has been written, captured it."

Thessaloniki became a centre of Ottoman administration in the Balkans. While most of Macedonia was ruled by the Ottomans, in Mount Athos the monastic community continued to exist in a state of autonomy. The remainder of the Chalkidiki peninsula also enjoyed an autonomous status: the "Koinon of Mademochoria" was governed by a locally appointed council due to privileges obtained on account of its wealth, coming from the gold and silver mines in the area.

Greece gained the southern parts of region with Thessaloniki from the Ottoman Empire after the First Balkan War, and expanded its share in the Second Balkan War against Bulgaria. The boundaries of Greek Macedonia were finalized in the Treaty of Bucharest. In World War I, Macedonia became a battlefield. The Greek Prime Minister, Eleftherios Venizelos, favoured entering the war on the side of the Entente, while the Germanophile King Constantine I favoured neutrality. Invited by Venizelos, in autumn 1915, the Allies landed forces in Thessaloniki to aid Serbia in its war against Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, but their intervention came too late to prevent the Serbian collapse. The Macedonian Front was established, with Thessaloniki at its heart, while in summer 1916 the Bulgarians took over Greek eastern Macedonia without opposition. This provoked a military uprising among pro-Venizelist officers in Thessaloniki, resulting in the establishment of a "Provisional Government of National Defence" in the city, headed by Venizelos, which entered the war alongside the Allies. After intense diplomatic negotiations and an armed confrontation in Athens between Entente and royalist forces the King abdicated, and his second son Alexander took his place. Venizelos returned to Athens in June 1917 and Greece, now unified, officially joined the war on the side of the Allies.

In World War II Macedonia was occupied by the Axis (1941–44), with Germany taking western and central Macedonia with Thessaloniki and Bulgaria occupying and annexing eastern Macedonia.

The geographical region of Macedonia also includes the male-only autonomousmonastic state of Mount Athos, but this is not part of the Macedonia precincts. Mount Athos is under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, and enjoys a special status: it is inaccessible to women;[33] its territory is a self-governed part of Greece, and the powers of the state are exercised through a governor. The European Union takes this special status into consideration, particularly on matters of taxation exemption and rights of installation.[34] The governor of Mount Athos is appointed by the Greek Foreign Ministry.

Central Macedonia is the most popular tourist destination in Greece with more than 3.6 million tourists in 2009 (18% of the total number of tourists who visited Greece that year.[citation needed])

Popular tourist destinations include the various UNESCO World Heritage sites, the various beaches (such as the peninsula of Chalkidiki) during the summer and ski resorts like Vasilitsa. There is also significant religious tourism to Mount Athos.

During the first half of the twentieth century, major demographic shifts took place, which resulted in the region's population becoming overwhelmingly ethnic Greek. In 1919, after Greek victory in World War I, Bulgaria and Greece signed the Treaty of Neuilly, which called for an exchange of populations between the two countries. According to the treaty, Bulgaria was considered to be the parent state of all ethnic Slavs living in Greece. Most ethnic Greeks from Bulgaria were resettled in Greek Macedonia; most Slavs were resettled in Bulgaria but a number remained, most of them by changing or adapting their surnames and declaring themselves to be Greek so as to be exempt from the exchange.[citation needed] In 1923 Greece and Turkey signed the Treaty of Lausanne in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), and in total 776,000 Greek refugees from Turkey (674,000), Bulgaria (33,000), Russia (61,000), Serbia (5,000), Albania (3,000) were resettled in the region.[41] They replaced between 300,000 and 400,000 Macedonian Turks and other Muslims (of Albanian, Roma, Slavic and Vlach ethnicity) who were sent to Turkey under similar terms.[42]

Macedonian cities during Ottoman rule were often known by multiple names (Greek, Slavic or Ottoman Turkish by the respective populations). After the partition of Ottoman Europe, most cities in Greece either became officially known by their Greek names or adopted Greek names; likewise most cities in Bulgaria and the Kingdom of Yugoslavia became officially known or adopted names in the languages of their respective states. After the population exchanges, many locations were renamed to the languages of their new occupants.

The population was badly affected by the Second World War through starvation, executions, massacres and deportations. Central Macedonia, including Thessaloniki, was occupied by the Germans, and in the east Nazi-aligned Bulgarian occupation forces persecuted the local Greek population and settled Bulgarian colonists in their occupation zone in eastern Macedonia and western Thrace, deporting all Jews from the region. Total civilian deaths in Macedonia are estimated at over 400,000, including up to 55,000 Greek Jews. Further heavy fighting affected the region during the Greek Civil War which drove many inhabitants of rural Macedonia to emigrate to the towns and cities, or abroad, during the late 1940s and 1950s.

An article published in an Athenian newspaper from 1959 tells a detailed story of the ceremony which took place in the village of Atrapos, when the villagers - mostly women and children - took "the oath before God" to cease speaking the local Slavic idiom, which gives ground for misunderstandings to the Bulgarians.[44][45]

Greek is by far the most widely spoken and the only official language of public life and education in Macedonia. The local Macedonian dialect is spoken alongside dialects from other parts of Greece and Pontic Greek still spoken by some Greeks of Pontic descent. One archaic Greek dialect indigenous to Greek Macedonia and other parts of Northern Greece is that spoken by the Sarakatsani, a traditionally transhument shepherd community whose dialect has undergone very little change through foreign influences. Macedonian Slavic dialects are the most widely spoken minority language while Aromanian, Arvanitic, Megleno-Romanian, Turkish and Romani are also spoken. Ladino is still spoken by some Jews in Thessaloniki.

The distinct regional identity of Greek Macedonians is also the product of the fact that it was closer to the centres of power in both the Byzantine and Ottoman period, was considered culturally, politically, and strategically more important than other parts of Greece during these two periods, and also the fact that the region had a far more ethnically and religiously diverse population in both the medieval and Ottoman periods. In the late Byzantine period Greek Macedonia had also been the centre of significant Byzantine successor states, such as the Kingdom of Thessalonica, the short-lived state established by the rival Byzantine emperor, Theodore Komnenos Doukas, and - in parts of western Macedonia - the Despotate of Epirus, all of which helped promote a distinct Greek Macedonian identity. In the contemporary period this is reinforced by Greek Macedonia's proximity to other states in the southern Balkans, the continuing existence of ethnic and religious minorities in East Macedonia and Thrace not found in southern Greece, and the fact that migrants and refugees from elsewhere in the Balkans, southern Russia, and Georgia (including Pontic Greeks and Caucasus Greeks from northeastern Anatolia and the south Caucasus) have usually gravitated to Greek Macedonia rather than southern Greece.

The exact size of the linguistic and ethnic minority groups of Macedonia is officially unknown, as Greece has not conducted a census on the question of mother tongue since 1951. The main minority groups in Macedonia are:

Aromanians form a minority population throughout much of Macedonia. They largely identify as Greeks and most belong to the Greek Orthodox Church. In the 1951 census they numbered 39,855 in all Greece (the number in Macedonia proper is unknown). Many Aromanians villages can be found along the slopes of the Vermion Mountains and Mount Olympus. Smaller numbers can be found in the Prespes region and near the Gramos mountains.

Arvanites communities can be found in Greek Macedonia. Five Arvanite communities exist in Serres regional unit while many can be found in the capital, Thessaloniki. There are three Arvanites villages in the Florina regional unit (Drosopigi, Lechovo and Flampouro) with others located in Kilkis and Thessaloniki regional units.[50]

The Jewish population in Greece was the oldest in mainland Europe, and was mostly Sephardic. Thessaloniki became the largest center of the Sephardic Jews, who nicknamed the city la madre de Israel (Israel's mother)[51] and "Jerusalem of the Balkans".[52] It also included the historically significant and ancient Greek-speaking Romaniote community. During the Ottoman era, Thessaloniki's Sephardic community comprised more than half the city's population; the Jews were dominant in commerce until the ethnic Greek population increased after independence in 1912. By the 1680s, about 300 families of Sephardic Jews, followers of Sabbatai Zevi, had converted to Islam, becoming a sect known as the Dönmeh (convert), and migrated to Salonika, whose population was majority Jewish. They established an active community that thrived for about 250 years. Many of their descendants later became prominent in trade.[53] Many Jewish inhabitants of Thessaloniki spoke Ladino, the Romance language of the Sephardic Jews.[54]

The Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 burned much of the center of the city and left 50,000 Jews homeless of the total of 72,000 residents who were burned out.[55] Having lost homes and their businesses, many Jews emigrated: to the United States, Palestine, and Paris. They could not wait for the government to create a new urban plan for rebuilding, which was eventually done.[56]

After the Greco-Turkish War in 1922 and the expulsion of Greeks from Turkey, many refugees came to Greece. Nearly 100,000 ethnic Greeks resettled in Thessaloniki, reducing the proportion of Jews in the total community. After this, Jews made up about 20% of the city's population. During the interwar period, Greece granted the Jews the same civil rights as other Greek citizens.[55] In March 1926, Greece re-emphasized that all citizens of Greece enjoyed equal rights, and a considerable proportion of the city's Jews decided to stay.

World War II brought a disaster for the Jewish Greeks, since in 1941 the Germans occupied Greece and began actions against the Jewish population. Greeks of the Resistance and Italian forces (before 1943) tried to protect the Jews and managed to save some.[51] By the 1940s, the great majority of the Jewish Greek community firmly identified as both Greek and Jewish. According to Misha Glenny, such Greek Jews had largely not encountered "anti-Semitism as in its North European form."[57]

In 1943 the Nazis began actions against the Jews in Thessaloniki, forcing them into a ghetto near the railroad lines and beginning deportation to concentration and labor camps. They deported and exterminated approximately 96% of Thessaloniki's Jews of all ages during the Holocaust.[51] Today, a community of around 1200 remains in the city.[51] Communities of descendants of Thessaloniki Jews – both Sephardic and Romaniote – live in other areas, mainly the United States and Israel.[51]Israeli singer Yehuda Poliker recorded a song about the Jews of Thessaloniki, called "Wait for me, Thessaloniki".

Other cities of Greek Macedonia with significant Jewish population (Romaniote or Sephardi) in the past include Veria, Kavala and Kastoria.

Other minority groups include Armenians and Romani. Romani communities are concentrated mainly around the city of Thessaloniki. An uncertain number of them live in Macedonia from the total of about 200,000–300,000 that live scattered on all the regions of Greece.[58]

Council of Europe, Steering Committee on Local and Regional Democracy (2001). "Special Regulations for Particular Areas – the Legal Status of Aghion Oros". Structure and operation of Local and Regional Democracy. Council of Europe. ISBN92-871-4644-6.

^Π.Δ. 51/87 "Καθορισμός των Περιφερειών της Χώρας για το σχεδιασμό κ.λ.π. της Περιφερειακής Ανάπτυξης" (Determination of the Regions of the Country for the planning etc. of the development of the regions). Government Gazette. 1987.

^Grigoriou, Alexandros Ch.; Chekimoglou, Evangelos A. (2008). Η Θεσσαλονίκη των Περιηγητών 1430–1930
[The Thessaloniki of Explorers 1430–1930] (in Greek). Thessaloniki: Εταιρία Μακεδονικών Σπουδών. p. 43. ISBN960-7265-91-2. Retrieved 2 August 2011. From Robert de Dreux's personal journals, 1669: Leaving a village named Baicui, we reached Thessaloniki, which is one of the most splendid cities of Macedonia and the whole of Greece.

^"The whole of Greece is divided into four great pashaliks; Tripolizza, Egripo or Neropont, Yanina, and Salonica. The pashalik of […] Salonica [comprises], the southern divisions of Macedonia. The north of Macedonia is governed by beys;…" Quoted from: Thomas Thornton, The Present State of Turkey, London 1807, Vol. 2, p. 10, http://depts.washington.edu/cartah/text_archive/thornton/t2c5.shtml

^"There is some difficulty in prescribing the exact boundaries of the country properly called Greece. Formerly it included Macedonia, Peloponnesus, the Ionian Islands, Crete and a part of what is now called Albania. [...] The present divisions of Greece, adopted by the [1829] provisional government, are the following: Eastern Hellas, Western Hellas, Morea, Epirus, Thessaly, Macedonia, Crete, and the Islands. […] What proportion of Macedonia is considered as coming within the boundaries of Greece, we have no means of deciding" Quoted from: John L. Comstock, History of the Greek Revolution compiled from official documents of the Greek government, New York 1829, pages 5 and 6, Google Books

^Π.Δ. 51/87 "Καθορισμός των Περιφερειών της Χώρας για το σχεδιασμό κ.λ.π. της Περιφερειακής Ανάπτυξης" (Determination of the Regions of the Country for the planning etc. of the development of the regions, Efimeris tis Kyverniseos ΦΕΚ A 26/06.03.1987

^Council of Europe, Structure and Operation of Local and Regional Democracy, 8. See also the article 105 of the Constitution of Greece and the Common Declaration on Mount Athos attached to the Treaty of Entry of Greece to the EEC (1 January 1981).

^Kirsch, Adam (15 February 2010). "The Other Secret Jews". Review of Marc David Baer's The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks. The New Republic. Retrieved 21 February 2010.